NPS-AS-91-008 AD-A236 803

NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL

Monterey, California

0 ELECTEr
S JUNi2 1991"

LIMITATIONS OF STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT

IN BUREAUS:
THE CASE OF THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE -(.0

Nancy C. Roberts

April 1991

Approved for public release; distribution unlimited.

Prepared for: Director, Net Assessment, Office of the Defense, Washington D. C. 20301
Competitive Strategies Office and Strategic Planning Branch, Office of the
Secretary of Defense, Washington D.C. 20301
Defense Policy Office, National Security Council Staff, Washington D.C. 20506
91 U 7 016
 NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL
Monterey, California

RADM. R. W. West, Jr. Harrison Shull

Superintendent Provost

The report was prepared in conjunction with research

conducted for and funded by Director. Net Assessment, Office of
the Defense, Washington D.C., Competitive StrateQies Office and
Strat3gic Planning Branch, Office of the Secretary of Defense,
Washington D.C., Defense Policy Office. National Security Council
Staff, Washinqton D.C.

Reproduction of all or part of this report is authorized.

This report was prepared by:

Nancy C. P6berts
Associate Professor
Department of Administrative Sciences

Reviewed by:

Dav R hipp , Chairman 0Z

De artment of dministrative Sciences

Released by:

Paul--.'.Ma~to" 'beg of Research

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Limitations of Strategic Management in Bureaus: The Case of the Department of Defense

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Nancy C. Roberts
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 Abstract

This paper outlines the distinctive features of public bureaus

and their consequences for bureau management, especially bureau
strategic management. It is argued that bureau strategic manage-
ment has limited applicability, especially in large, multiorgani-
zational bureaus like the Department of Defense. Rather than
endorse the transfer of strategic management principles from
business and industry, the author considers the invention and
development of new and innovative organizational solutions as the
most viable option for the management of the Department of De-
fense in the future.

2
Working papers of the Naval Postgraduate School Department of Administrative
Sciences are preliminary materials circulated to stimulate discussion and critical
comment. The views stated herein are the author's and not necessarily those of the
Department of the Navy or the Naval Postgraduate School.

List of working papers on inside backcover.

For additional copies, write to:

Department of Administrative Sciences Ae-elon For

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Monterey, California 93943-5026 Justitto
(408) 646-2471 By
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Li
Dist Special
 LIMITATIONS OF STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT IN BUREAUS:

THE CASE OF THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Professor Nancy C. Roberts

Associate Professor of Strategic Management
Naval Postgraduate School

Please Address All Correspondence To:

Professor Nancy C. Roberts

AS/RC
Naval Postgraduate School
Monterey, CA 93943
(408)-646-2742

April 1991

Prepared for:
Director, Net Assessment, Office of the Secretary of Defense,
Washington D.C. 20301
Competitive Strategies Office and Strategic Planning Branch,
Office of the Secretary of Defense, Washington D.C. 20301
Defense Policy Office, National Security Council Staff,
Washington D.C. 20506

1
 LIMITATIONS OF STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT IN BUREAUS:

THE CASE OF THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Introduction

Strategic management is of growing interest to public sector

managers (Bozeman and Straussman, 1990; Koteen, 1989). As the
concept is drawn from traditional business and industry usage, it
has come to describe a conscious, rational decision process by
which an organization formulates its goals, and then implements

and monitors them, making adjustments as environmental and organ-

izational conditions warrant. Goals are established in light of
the organization's resources and its internal strengths and
weaknesses, as well as the opportunities and threats that exist

in its external environment. Goals are expected to be mutually

reinforcing and integrated into a comprehensive whole so organi-
zational activity can be coordinated and controlled (Fredrickson,

1983:566)1 2
The practice of strategic management is assumed to be trans-
ferable to all organizations. While some analysts acknowledge

constraints in the application of strategic management to public

bureaus (Wortman, 1979; Hosmer, 1982; Wheelen and Hunger, 1986),
they nonetheless recommend its introduction and acceptance, with
modifications, into public sector practice. In part, these
recommendations derive from the assumption that management is a
generic process (Baldwin, 1987; Weinberg, 1983). Although the
ends of business and government are different, the means of
achieving the ends are believed to be similar. Both public and
private management have common procedural elements that permit

2
one to view management as a universal process (Murray, 1983:63).
Furthermore, analysts have pointed to a convergence of sectors --
government and business organizations are becoming more similar
in terms of their functions, management approaches, and public
visibility (Bozeman, 1987; Murray, 1983; Musolf and Seidman,

1980). In fact, recent analysis suggest that all organizations

can be viewed as public to the extent that political authority
affects their behavior and processes (Bozeman, 1987). These
assessments would suggest, therefore, that it is both appropriate
and possible to transfer strategic management to public bureaus.
This paper challenges these assumptions. Strategic manage-

ment in public bureaus is believed to have limited applicability,

especially in large, multiorganizational systems. To make the
initial argument, the differences between public bureaus and
private enterprises are summarized in section one. Drawing on
the literature, bureaus are found to have unique forms of owner-

ship, funding, and means of social control. These features in

turn produce variation between the two sectors in terms of:
performance measures; legal and formal constraints; external
stakeholder influences; level of coerciveness; breadth of
impact; public scrutiny; objectives and criteria for evalua-
tion; hierarchical authority; incentives; and performance
characteristics.
Section two examines the impact these unique features have
on bureau strategic management. In particular, one finds four
major areas where transfer of enterprise strategic management is
especially problematic: the formulation of bureau policy; the

bureau's adaptation to its external environment; the implementa-

3
tion of bureau policy; and bureau decision making.
The case of the Department of Defense is used as an illus-
tration in section three. Despite the extensive efforts of
strategic analysis, decision-making and planning within DoD, a

coordinated, integrated effort to strategically manage the De-

partment has yet to be realized. Although the DoD has some
unique features that distinguished it from other large bureaus,
the difficulties it has with policy formulation, implementation,

environmental adaptation, and decision making are believed to be

characteristic of other multiorganizational systems.

Section four provides three response to the problems in

transferring enterprise strategic management to the DoD. One
could accept the arguments in the paper -- strategic management
cannot be transferred to bureaus of this type -- and resign

oneself to "muddling through" as the only viable alternative.

One could reject of the arguments in this paper, believing in-
stead that strategic management can and should be introduced.

Assuming this position, one could endorse the launching of major

change project to put into place the necessary and sufficient

elements to make strategic management work. Or one could accept

the arguments that strategic management is not a panacea for the
DoD, turning instead to other innovative solutions and opportuni-
ties. The third option is seen as the most viable for the DoD.

4
 UNIQUE FEATURES OF PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS

There is growing theoretical and empirical literature to

document the differences between public and private sector organ-
izations (Rainey, Backoff and Levine, 1976; Perry and Rainey,
1988; Rainey, 1989). Table 1 outlines the major variables that

have been used to differentiate between the two domains.

Insert Table 1 About Here

At the far left of the table we see two of the most common
distinctions between public and private entities: ownership and

funding (Perry and Rainey, 1988:184). There are two forms of

ownership: public affd private ownership. Among public organiza-
tions ownership rights are indivisible and cannot be transferred
among individuals; ownership rights among private organizations

are divisible and can be transferred.

Private firms also are supported through sales or private
donations, while public organizations rely on government funding

and appropriations or fees based on pre-set formulas. Thus,

there are two distinct forms of funding: public and private.
A third distinction between public and private organizations
is the mode of social control. Social control is a dimension

that describes the extent to which major components of an organi-

zation are subjected to controls by markets or polyarchy (Dahl

and Lindblom, 1953; Lindblom, 1977; Perry and Rainey, 1988).

Markets, at one extreme of the continuum, have numerous buyers

and sellers who have no organized intent to control an organiza-
tion. Control is exerted by the price system in economic markets

5
 0 o~
U
-x 0m

4
C = C

E-4 m 2- Cl

~2 E~ U & U

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C6I
- .2
as participants engage in economic exchanges of goods and serv-
ices between customers and suppliers.
At the other end of the continuum, polyarchy describes
bargaining and persuasion among those external to the organiza-
tion who have some degree of control over the organization. In
western democracies polyarchy involves a pluralistic political
process: multiple governmental authorities, interest groups, and
independent participants contest "the rules" and control through
the directives issued by government. And while participants may

engage in exchange, the exchanges are not economic but political.

Through their exchanges they attempt to change authoritative

rulings by marshaling political support and legal authority (Dahl

and Lindblom, 1953; Lindblom, 1977; Perry and Rainey, 1988;
Wamsley and Zald, 1973).
These three elements, ownership, funding, and social control
produce a complex continuum of organizational structures and
processes. Eight types outlined by Perry and Rainey (1988) are
summarized in column 1 in Table 1. At the merket end of the

continuum, enterprises have private ownership and private funding

with markets as a mode of social control. At the other end,

bureaus have public ownership and public funding and a polyarchic

mode of social control. The organizational types in between

are hybrids representing various combinations of ownership,

funding and social control. For example, as a hybrid, government
sponsored enterprises such as the Corporation for Public Broad-

casting has private ownership, public funding, and a polyarchic

mode of social control, while state-owned enterprise such as

6
Airbus has public ownership, private funding, and a market mode
of social control (Perry and Rainey, 1988:196).
These eight organizational types representing different
admixtures of ownership, funding and social control are hypothe-
sized to have differential impacts on organization functioning
and management (Table 1 column 2). Of particular interest for
this discussion is the functioning of bureaus. At least eight
organizational and contextual properties are expected to be
affected. The eight organizational and contextual properties
are: performance expectations; performance measures; legal and
formal constraints; external stakeholder influence; degree of

coerciveness; breadth of impact; and public scrutiny (Rainey,

Backoff, and Levine, 1976; Rainey, 1989).
Reliance on appropriations rather than market exposure is
hypothesized to result in different performance measures in
bureaus. Less able to use market indicators and information
(prices, profits, sales) to judge performance, bureaus have few
unambigucus and clear measures of performance. Without these
measures, they are expected to have less incentives for cost
reductions, operating efficiency, effective performance, and
allocational efficiency compared to enterprises. Instead, per-

formance measures tend to be based on organizational input meas-

ures such as resources and personnel, and performance tends to be

evaluated in terms of the values of fairness, equity, responsive-

ness, accountability and honesty, all consistent with the con-
cerns of a democratic society.
Legal and formal constraints (legislative, judicial, hier-

archical) puts more limits on purposes, methods, procedures and

7
spheres of operation of bureaus compared to enterprises. Facing

a "jurisdictional jungle (Levine et.al., 1975) bureau managers

tend to be circumscribed in the choices they make to enter or
withdraw from various activities. A proliferation of formal
specifications and controls further delimits managerial and
organization action (e.g.. Civil Service), while a system of
checks and balances embedded in consitutional law opens up more

external sources of organizational control and a greater fragmen-

tation of the sources of authority.
External stakeholder influences are believed to be more of a
challenge to bureaus with their greater diversity and intensity.
In comparison to enterprises, bureaus are expected to be more
concerned with stakeholder support. However, this support is
tenuous given competing and wide-ranging stakeholder interests
that make reconcilation dii'cult.
Bureau activity is also viewed as representing a greater
degree of coerciveness compared to enterprise activity. Absent a
market mechanism, individual choice is replaced by monopolistic

or unavoidable action taken by bureaus. For example, individuals

cannot refuse to participate in the financing of most governmen-
tal activities (e.g. taxes) and the consumption of many of its

services (e.g. social security).

Bureau decisions also seen a having greater breadth of
impact, influence, and scope. Charged with representing the
public interest, the bureau actions compared to those of enter-

prises take on greater significance and importance, symbolic and

otherwise.

8
 And finally, bureaus are thought to be subjected to greater
public scrutiny compared to enterprises. Given greater stake-

holder interests, legal and formal constraints, the potential for

coerciveness, and breadth of impact, it is not surprising that
their actions are expected to be open for study and review.
Variation in a bureau's internal processes and systems is

also expected. Again drawing on Rainey, Backoff, and Levine

(1976) and Rainey (1989), variation among the eight organization

types is expected to produce an impact on at least four internal
organizational processes and systems (column 3 of Table 1):
objectives and criteria for evaluation; authority relations and

role of the manager; incentives and incentive structures; and

organizational performance.
Objectives and criteria for evaluation in bureaus are

believed to be more complex, diverse, vague, and intangible.

Response to and reconciliation of competing stakeholder interests

which represent multiple and diverse performance expectations
makes evaluation difficult. In addition, making choices with
these interests in mind becomes even more of a challenge when

vague and intangible criteria and standards for evaluation such

as accountability, equity, accountability, and openness are used
to assess action.
Hierarchical authority in U.S. government organizations is

considered to be weaker in the Executive Branch of government

compared to business enterprises. This weakness has been related
to the fragmentation and complexity of government at all levels

and the ability to bypass hierarchical superiors by appealing to

alternative constituencies such as the Congress. The multiple

9
legal, statutory, and procedural controls noted earlier are also
a source for this limited authority. Under these conditions, the
role of the administrator is more circumscribed with limits on
his/her autonomy and flexibility. For example, merit principles
limit how administrators hire, fire, and structure the incentives
systems for their subordinates. Supervision is challenging as
clear objectives and standards of performance are difficult to
specify. Emphasis on controls is hypothesized to produce a

reluctance to delegate, multiple levels of review and approval,

greater numbers of regulations, and fewer efforts to innovate and

change.
Incentives and the incentive structure of bureaus are more
difficult to devise. Performance evaluations suffer from
performance objectives and measures that are vague or ill de-
fined. In addition, the merit system limits experimentation and

innovation with incentive structures responsive to unique organi-

zational conditions and situations.

Performance characteristics of bureaus as a consequence of

the organizational properties, processes, and systems outlined

above are hypothesized to suffer from: red tape, buck-passing,
timidity, rigidity, inertia, routinization and inflexibility,
procedural regularity and caution, and risk avoidance. Scheduled
disruptions such as elections and political appointments also are

thought to interrupt sustained implementation of goals, plans and

programs, all of which tend to hinder performance.

10
 IMPLICATIONS FOR STRATEGIC MANAGMENT OF BUREAUS

This brief overview of the uniqueness of bureaus in terms of

their contexts, properties and their internal processes and
systems has many implications for management in public sector
organizations (Rainey, 1989). Of most interest for this analy-
sis, however, is how these differences potentially impact on the
strategic management of the bureau.
Analysis to date, while scanty and not well grounded empiri-
cally, suggests little reason for optimism. Some analysts like
Ring and Perry caution that ". ..strategic management in the

public sector may be extremely difficult." In fact, they write,

"if public sector performance is judged against a normative model
of strategic management developed in the private sector, it is
likely to be found inadequate (1985:281). Others concur pointing
to the lack of success of strategic management efforts in public
bureaus, warning that "most efforts to produce fundamental deci-
sions and policy changes in government through strategic planning
(management) will not succeed." "Strategic planning (management)
obviously is no panacea" (Bryson and Roering, 1989:606). And

Allison (1983) flatly states that "the notion that there is any
significant body of private management practices and skills that
can be transferred directly to public management tasks in a way

that produces significant improvements is wrong" (pp. 87-88).

One finds at least four major areas of difficulty in trans-
ferring strategic management to bureaus: 1) the general manager
of a bureau is required to share power with other key players
(those both internal and external to the organization) when

11
formulating organizational policy; 2) bureaus operate in a
political economy not an economic one and lack consensually-based
indicators to measure organizational performance; 3) the bureau
general manager has less autonomy and control compared to the
enterprise general manager to induce system coherence, integra-
tion and coordination during the policy implementation process;
and 4) bureau strategic decision making, as a consequence of the
above factors, is much more complex and uncertain compared to
enterprise strategic decision making.

Shared Power in Policy Formulation

The most fundamental difference between bureaus and enter-
prises stems from the Constitution. In business, the functions
of general managemant (formulation of goals and strategy, manage-

ment of internal organizational systems, and interface with

external constituencies) are centralized in the hands of a gener-
al manager -- the Chief Executive Officer (Allison, 1983). In
bureaus, the functions of the general manager are shared among
competing institutions: the executive, two houses of Congress,
and the courts. The objective for this constitutional arrange-
ment is to preclude the arbitrary exercise of power. By giving a
number of individuals and competing institutions the right to be
involved in bureau decisions, each checks the power of the oth-
ers.
As the Federalist Papers make clear: "The great security
against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same
branch consists in giving those who administer each branch the

constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachment

12
of the others. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition"
(Quoted in Allison, 1983:80-81). Thus, in most areas of public
policy, responsibility is shared among individuals such as the

President and his staff, appointed bureau heads, career officials

within the bureau, congresspersons and their staffs.
Bureau general managers reflect how difficult this arrange-
ment is for them, especially those with experience primarily in
the private sector. As former Secretary of the Treasury, Michael
Blumenthal could not control the policy making process as he had
when he was President of Bendix. His power to decide what policy

was to be pursued, who was to be involved in its development, how

it would be developed, and who was going to administer it, was

severely limited. "No one, not even the President, has that kind

of power" (Blumenthal, 1983:30). Instead, he shared policy

making in Treasury with others inside and outside his organiza-
tion since ". ..everybody (felt) that he or she (had) a legitimate

piece of the action and must be involved (p.30).

Besides the additional numbers of people engaged in policy

debates, the process is complicated by the divergent interests
and goals among those involved. In business, Blumenthal's board
of directors and shareholders had common interests which they

shared with top management. Members of Congress, and government

officials, on the other hand, represent no monolithic group.
They all have very different backgrounds and represent very
different constituent interests. "By definition you cannot
please all of them. And whatever policy you follow, you are
certain to be attacked and criticized, which is not true in the

private sector. So what you learn is that there is no way to

13
please your constituents in this job the 'ay you can please your
constituents in the private sector. You have to learn to live

with that situation and survive within it" (Blumenthal, 1983:29).

Adaptation to the Environment

Enterprise strategic management begins with the assumption

that adaptation to the environment is paramount for long-term
organizational survival. Refusal to acknowledge competitors and

their strategies, to initiate or adopt new technologies, or to

monitor and respond to socio-political trends can doom an organi-
zation to obsolescence. Therefore, monitoring environmental
forces, interpreting them as threats or opportunities, and acting
on those possibilities, are an important feature of the strategic
management process.

Fortunately, the market economy provides a useful scorecard

to interpret the organization's capacity for adaptation. As a
mechanism to match supply and demand, gauge consumer preferences,
and to monitor performance, the market assesses penalties and
rewards via sales, return on investments and profits, and other
such indicators. Embedded in the logic of the market place is
the means to compare one enterprise with another. Such compari-

sons keep the enterprise accountable to its environment by re-

vealing to what extent it has been effective in doing what it has
set out to do and just how efficiently it has gone about it. If
the enterprise wants to maintain its course, alter its strategy,

or modify what goods and services it offers, it relies on market

signals to assess how well it has performed vis-a-vis others.

Those signals, translated from the buying behavior of consumers,

14
provide the ultimate test of enterprise adaptability.
Adaptation to the environment is also of concern for bureau
management. Yet bureaus operate in a political economy. Politi-

cal economies differ from market economies in that bureaus have

to rely on oversight bodies as their markets (Backoff and Nutt,

1990; Drucker, 1973). These oversight bodies help establish
bureau goals and provide the resources necessary to accomplish
them. Resources are not allocated by any market mechanism; they

require bargaining and negotiating with political authority such

as an oversight body in order to alter appropriations.
Unfortunately, the signals in a political economy, especial-
ly in a democratic one with polyarchic centers of control, are
weak, contradictory, and difficult to interpret. No clear

consensus on appropriate indicators of performance such as price,

profits, sales, or return on investments exist. There is no
"bottom line" to serve as a measure of success. The lack of
clear performance measures, together with vague and competing

stakeholder interests, make the forging of a consensus on bureau

goals and the allocation of resources difficult. Although mecha-
nisms exist to gather and interpret information in the political

economy (e.g. voting, political mandates), they only register

stakeholder preference on a periodic basis, and the results tend
to be generalized to a party or administration, not specific to a
bureau policy or strategy.

Instead, bureaus rely on proxy mechanisms to keep managers

accountable to their environments. Performance is judged in
terms of its compatibility with legal mandates, obligations to a

15
charter, and current executive and legislative authority inter-
ests. In addition, court rulings, enabling legislation, and
newly elected administrations all produce directives that the
general manager and his/her subordinates are measured against
(Backoff and Nutt, 1990).
Unfortunately, these proxy indicators, as mentioned earlier,
produce a "jurisdictional jungle" (Levine et al., 1975). They
represent a confusing and often competing set of expectations.
With conflicting signals from the environment on what policies to

pursue, and with few "objective" indicators to track and reward

performance, it is understandable that general managers may

prefer incremental modifications in the current system rather

than embarking on major change efforts which require bold, imagi-

native strokes. Because a bureau's environment is complex, it is
preferable not to venture too far into the unknown. Change is
risky: it activates the opposition or creates it where none
existed, and potentially upsets a delicate balance among compet-

ing stakeholder interests. Besides, focusing on the familiar,

deviating only slightly from the status quo, makes it easier to
absorb feedback and modify bureau operations as one goes along
(Mintzberg, 1974).
Avoiding disruptions and minimizing threats from the envi-
ronment then is preferable to searching for new opportunities.
As long as the general manager's rewards for making marginal
adjustments to the status quo exceed the rewards for adapting in
more innovative ways, there will be less interest in the organi-
zation's adaptive capacity.

16
 Policy Implementation

Given the market mechanism to assess performance and hold

the organization accountable, enterprise strategic managers are
granted greater responsibility for policy implementation compared
to their counterparts in public bureaus. Their responsibility
for implementation involves many tasks: designing the organiza-
tion's structure and culture to match its policy; developing
managers and employees to ensure that they have the appropriate

background, skills, and attributes to make the policy work;

employing the right functional policies to support the organiza-

tion's overall goals; establishing compatible financial, ac-
counting and information and evaluation systems to monitor organ-
izational performance; and developing personnel systems to
reward that performance. These tasks can be left in the hands of
the general manager because upper management, boards of direc-
tors, and stockholders have market indicators to keep general
managers accountable.
The bureau general manager, in comparison, does not have the
same level of autonomy in implementing bureau policy. The gener-
al manager does not control the personnel system nor the bureau's
personnel to the same degree. S/he cannot change the system to
fit with the organization's new direction, or hire and fire
people as the strategy changes, both of which are usual recommen-
dations in enterprise organizations. Staffing of high-level
positions requires Congressional approval. The broad outlines

of organizational structures are specified in legislative man-

dates and are difficult to modify and align as policy changes.

Incentives to encourage entrepreneurial behavior or support for a

17
new policy are circumscribed by law and operate under a set of
guidelines established by the Civil Service and the seniority

system. The system is devised more to prevent abuse rather than

to provide general management control over the implementation
process.
Also, as has been mentioned previously, oversight bodies
provide the bureau's resource base and politically determine
resource allocation. The bureau does not have an independent say
over its budget or finances. Authorizations and appropriations
emerge from the give and take of legislative process. This check
on resource allocation constrains not only how policies can be

implemented, but ultimately what policies can be implemented. No

matter how impressive the policy, without adequate funding,

implementation becomes a moot point.

It also should be noted that organizational coherence and

integration are not major goals in bureaus. While enterprise
strategic management is built on the premise that an integrated

approach to policy formulation and implementation is essential

for organizational effectiveness and efficiency, the same premise
does not hold for bureaus. In fact, policy formulators are
constitutionally separated from policy implementors. Evaluation
of organizational operations and outcomes is not so much the
concern of the general manager as much as it is the responsibili-
ty of congressional oversight committees. Therefore, the neces-
sary mechanisms important for coordinating organizational activi-
ties and monitoring organizational performance, such as manage-
ment information systems, and financial and accounting systems,

18
are underdeveloped, and in many cases, non-existent. Bureau
systems are not intended to provide coherence. The concern is
for "justice, not efficiency; the preservation of liberty, not
the best use of economic resources; accountability and legitima-
cy, not efficiency and effectiveness" (Bower, 1983:174).
Strategic managers in public bureaus are quick to acknowl-
edge the limits in implementing policy and providing organiza-
tional coherence. Michael Blumenthal compared bureau with enter-
prise management and concluded that managing a large federal

bureaucracy bore little resemblance to running a large corpora-

tion. While he was technically chief of the treasury, he had

"little power, effective power, to influence how the thing func-

tion(ed)" (Blumenthal, 1983:25). "In government," he commented,
"that kind of control (did) not exist" (p.25). Limited in terms
of hiring, firing, transferring personnel, providing incentives,
and structuring his organizations, he was judged not how well he
"ran the place," but on what happened to the economy, the budget,
inflation and so forth, all factors external to the bureau and
beyond his immediate control. That was not the case in business.

There he was judged on whether or not he was a good administrator

(pp.25-26).
George Shultz concurs: "In government and politics, recog-
nition and therefore incentives go to those who formulat(e)
policy and maneuver legislative compromise. By sharp contrast,
the kudos and incentives in business go to the persons who can

get something done. It is execution that counts. Who can get

the plant built, who can bring home the sales contract, who can

carry out the financing, and so on" (Allison, 1983:87).

19
 Decision Making

As a consequence of the unique features of bureau management

mentioned above, general managers resort to a particular process
to make decisions. Analysts have characterized it alternatively

as "muddling through" (Lindblom, 1959;1979), or "disjointed

incrementalism," (Braybrooke and Lindblom, 1963). Caught in a
pull of competing political forces, with no one central source of
power, general managers establish goals and make decisions as
they bargain and negotiate with their multiple stakeholders.
Rather than having one goal and decision to make about "maximiz-

ing" profits or growth, they have a whole array of goals and

decisions that emerge from their interactions.
Since it is difficult to coordinate and reconcile these
goals given their diversity and in many cases their incompatibil-
ity, decisions about goals tend to be made sequentially without
integrating them into a whole. Any inconsistencies among them

are ignored. Although treating decisions in this disjointed

fashion avoids the challenge of coordinating and integrating
organizational activity, it opens up a problem of organizational
coherence. Sub-parts of the organization can and do end up
working at cross purposes, undermining the overall effort. But
again, the emphasis is on being responsive and adaptive to multi-
ple and competing stakeholders rather than being concerned for
organizational coherence.

The role of the media is also frequently mentioned as a

major factor complicating general management's decision making
(Malek, 1972; Blumenthal, 1983; Rumsfeld, 1983). Public manage-

20
ment is described a much more open, "fishbowl" experience. The
press coverage can be so intense and leaks of bureau delibera-
tions so pervasive that many policy initiatives are halted before
they get off the drawing board. While enterprise general manag-
ers deal with the press under exceptional circumstances (in the
case of oil spills and product tampering), it is a rare occasion
when the press has access to internal operations of a firm as it

formulates and implements its strategies. Deliberations are not

subjected to the level of scrutiny as they are in bureaus (Ring

and Perry, 1985). This openness in bureaus leads policy makers

to be as concerned with how policies will look and appear to the
various constituencies as they are with how policies will work.

In Washington, comments Blumenthal, "appearance is as important

as reality" (1983:22-23). And the r'c . plays an important role

in establishing that appearance, especially when bureau perform-

ance indicators used to signal reality are ambiguous and diffi-

cult to define and interpret.

Time also complicates bureau decision making. A bureau

general manager's duration in office is usually measured in terms

of four-year election cycles, or even less as the fourth and

third years in office are interrupted by reelection campaigns.
The length of service of politically appointed top government
managers averages no more than 18 months for assistant secre-

taries (Dunlop in Allison, 1983). Changing bureau policy that

tends to be locked into statute or regulations is difficult and
time-consuming. Also the continuity of new policies, not to
mention the linkage between formulation and implementation is
limited under these circumstances. The process is further dis-

21
rupted with very specific time frames for legislative mandated
implementation, and yearly congressional budget cycles. Says

Harlan Cleveland: "We are tackling 20-year problems with five-

year plans staffed with two-year personnel funded by one-year
appropriations (Ring and Perry, 1985:281).

THE CASE OF THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Given these general limitations and difficulties in trans-

porting strategic management to bureaus, let us turn our atten-

tion to a specific bureau, the Department of Defense. The De-

partment receives public funding, operates with a polyarchic

means of social control, and is publicly owned. It experiences
the same constraints as other public bureaus. It also has unique

properties that make the transfer of enterprise strategic manage-

ment even more difficult.
Policy Ambiguity in a Shared Power World
The DoD operates in a shared power environment with multiple
and competing centers of power both internal and external to the

organization. The Secretary does not initiate his own policy and
strategy. He participates in a fluid process with a complex set
of stakeholders. These stakeholders include: the President, his
staff, the National Security Council and its staff, international

allies, other executive departments of the government, such as

State, Treasury, Energy (nuclear energy), Transportation (Coast

Guard), Justice (drug enforcement), and Commerce (technology
transfer), and powerful members of his own Department such as the

Military Departments, combatant Commanders in Chief (CINCs), the

22
Chairman and the Joint Chiefs, the Defense Agencies and Field
Activities, and the OSD staff itself. And in the Congress alone,
there are ten Senate committees and 11 House committees that have
formal jurisdiction over various aspects of defense policy
(Wildavsky, 1988:385).

These alternate centers of power rarely establish a consen-

sus on national security strategy. With the Eisenhower adminis-
tration as a possible exception, consensus on national security

strategy has been infrequent in the post World War II era (Brown,
1989; Hilsman, 1990; Sarkesian and Vitas, 1988).
Without a consensus, it is theoretically and practically

difficult to initiate the strategic mangement process. Strategic

management, it should be recalled, is a process to force choice

in a world of resource constraints. No system or organization

can do everything it wants to do. Upper management is forced to
makes hard choices and to commit to a course of action that is
deemed in the organization's best interest. But if there is no

consensus on what the leadership should do, and upper management

fails to develop a consensus, make the hard choices, and give

direction to the organization, lower-level managers will make

their own interpretation of what us best for the organization.
The danger is that lower-level management choices are more of a
reflection of their parochial interests than they are a reflec-
tion of what is best for the whole. Under these conditions, one
finds sub-optimization rather than strategic management.
A similar problem exists for the DoD. Lacking a consensus

on national security strategy, Presidents are prone to issue very

global and vague policy statements. Policy ambiguity rather than

23
clear and direct policy guidance becomes the norm (National
Security Strategy, 1987; 1988; 1990). Managers in DoD, in
turn, are left to manage in a policy and strategy vacuum.
Forced to build on their own interpretations of the national
security interest, their hard choices substitute for those of
"upper management" and quite naturally reflect their more spe-
cialized, parochial interests. Under these conditions, it is not
surprising to find localized interests predominating over organi-
zational interests and less coordination and integration of the
whole.

The reluctance to provide specific guidance is a natural

byproduct of the U.S. constitution system (Ring and Perry, 1985).
While there is variation among Presidents and their Secretaries

of Defense in providing specific defense policy and strategy

guidance (Etzioni, 1984; Hilsman, 1990; Lord, 1988; Neustadt,

1980), the natural tendency is to avoid stating one's policy

preferences in clear and precise terms. There are, in fact,

disincentives for such clarity (Hammond, 1988).

From the perspective of dealing with Congress, a President's

unambiguous articulation of strategy can "give ammunition to

(his) enemies" (Hammond, 1988:6). It makes his administration
politically vulnerable by setting up priorities to support one
strategic need over another -- support for one international
regime as opposed to another, building ships as opposed to mis-

siles or airplanes. There is a preference to avoid mobilizing

opposition (both internal and international) and of limiting
one's options in the future. Then too there is a danger in being

24
too explicit about one's intentions. Revealing what one is
going to do suggests (given resource constraints) what one is

unlikely, unwilling, and unable to do, information that could be

valuable to one's competitors. In addition, a lack of announced
goals and strategy, especially ones that are fiscally con-
strained, transfers the hard choices to Congress while the admin-
istration avoids the risk of splintering its own coalition and
decreasing its own popularity. This is part of the "game that
Congress and the President play with one another.... The objec-
tive of this game is to let the other player make or appear to

make the decision" (Hammond, 1988:8).

There are also disincentives to produce clear ambiguous
policy directives built in to the executive office. From the
President's perspective, "agencies want guidance for a mixture of
good and bad reasons. The good reasons are in order to facili-
tate their design and implementation of effective programs and
their accountability for them. The bad reasons -- bad from the
standpoint of the President -- are to reduce their uncertainty at
the expense of the performance requirements of the President"

(Hammond, 1988:9).
The President may want to change his goals and strategy

quickly to meet to environmental exigencies, and do so more

rapidly than the DoD can support them. He may prefer incremental
commitment to programs, given political constraints, rather than
long-term commitments that the DoD weapon procurement programs
may require. The President may also want to present and inter-
pret his goals and objectives to different audiences differently.
There is a "need to be able to say different things to different

25
foreign audiences as well as domestic audiences" (Hammond,
1988:12). Keeping a coalition together with multiple and compet-
ing objectives in order to gain passage of legislation requires
some finesse (Baumer, 1978). Opposition can rally or a shaky
coalition can fall apart if clear, unambiguous strategy is artic-
ulated. Under these conditions, it may be of benefit to the
President to be deliberately vague (Nutt, 1979). Thus, there are

many disincentives for the President to issue clear statements of

strategy to the DoD, despite the department's administrative need
to have them.
Indicators of Performance and Environmental Adaptation
Comparable to other public bureaus, the DoD has difficulty
in establishing measures to characterize its performance and
environmental adaptation.
Readiness to fight is a DoD measure of performance in times
of peace, but it lacks the precision of market indicators.

Difficult to define, and open to various interpretations among

competing stakeholders, no consensus exists on what readiness
means much less how to measure it. To compound the problem,

readiness is an "input variable" which focuses attention on

equipment and supplies, and draws it away from operations and
outcomes. According to critics, the emphasis on "input varia-

bles" rather than "output variables" has resulted in major prob-

lems with our military operations in the past (Fitzgerald, 1989;
Kaufman, 1986; Luttwak, 1985; Perry, 1989).
Reliance on output measures to measure DoD performance also
has its disadvantages. Two measures -- winning or losing in

26
combat -- are indicators that may take too long to determine, as
in the case of winning, or may be impossible to rectify as in the
case of losing. Reliance on these measures to judge DoD perform-
ance is either too time consuming or too risky.
These dilemmas over performance measures led the former

Secretary of Defense Harold Brown to conclude that "there is no

single number that provides a bottom-line measure of how well the
DoD or any other governmental agency is being managed. And there
is a whole set of conflicting and often legitimate forces whose
pull is neither toward improved efficiency nor toward increased
combat capability" (Brown, 1983:217). He goes on to warn that it
is "not possible to manage the Department of Defense exactly like
a business and to try to get to a bottom line that indicates
profit or any other single measurable criterion" (Brown,

1983:217).
Policy Implementation

The Secretary of Defense also suffers from the same lack of

control over policy implementation as do other public managers.

The implementation functions of the general manager are not
centered in his office but are spread out among competing centers

of power.
The Secretary does not control his budget, Congress author-

izes and appropriates it. The process to produce the budget also
is very complex, time consuming, and duplicative, difficult to
administer and coordinate (Gansler, 1989; Hendrickson, 1988;
Jones and Doyle, 1989; Kanter, 1983; Wildavsky, 1988). Con-
gressional budget involvement and oversight, for example, in-
volves "some 30 committees, 77 subcommittees, and 4 panels....

27
Every working day... entails on average almost 3 new General
Accounting Office (GAO) audits of DoD; an estimated 450 written
inquiries and over 2,500 telephone inquiries from Capitol Hill;
and nearly 3 separate reports to Congress each averaging over
1,000 man-hours in preparation and approximately $50,000 in cost.
Senior DoD officials spend upwards of 40 hours preparing for the
6 appearances as witnesses and the 14 hours of testimony that
they provide on average for each day Congress is in session"
(Cheney, 1989:26-27, emphasis in text). In addition, as one OMB
and DoD study found, just to fulfill statute requirements, Con-

gress requires 319 reports of the DoD (GAO Report, 1988).

The Secretary is also restricted, as are other bureau manag-
ers, in making organizational changes. Adding or deleting per-
sonnel and subunits at the level of the assistant under secre-
taries of defense, requires the approval of Congress, and can
take months before acceptance is granted.

Congress also intervenes to make its own organizational

changes and add new units when it deems necessary: prior to

1981, it prescribed functional areas of responsibility -- the

Comptroller in 1949, Manpower and Reserve Affairs in 1967, plus a
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Reserve Affairs, and Health Af-
fairs in 1969. The small business Act required the department to

establish a Director of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utiliza-

tion in 1978. After 1981, others added were: an Inspector

General, A Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, and three

Assistant Secretaries with specific functional responsibilities:
reserve affairs, command, control, and communications, intelli-

28
gence, and special operations. Congress even spelled out the
duties of new officials requested by the Executive Branch in
statutes, details usually left for DoD directives. And it
"broke new ground" when it mandated the establishment of a Uni-
fied Command for special operations and prescribed its composi-
tion and functions in detail (OSD Study Team, 1987a:A-17).
The Secretary of Defense faces other constraints in the
administration of the Department. For example, attempts to
develop a less rigid personnel management system, giving some
degree of flexibility in the hiring and pay of specialized per-
sonnel, as was done in the Navy's China Lake project, has yet to
be authorized by Congress, although endorsed by the Packard
Commission. Base closing, one of many attempts for the DoD to
reallocate its resources and personnel, usually meets stiff
resistance in Congress, especially if the base is in a congress-

person's district.
Decision Making
Given these constraints on the Secretary of Defense in
managing the department, and the complexity of department manage-

ment, decision making in the DoD has been described as "organized

anarchy" by some (Sabrosky et.al., 1983), and a "garbage can
process" by others (Crecine, 1986; Bromiley 1986). Models of
rational decision making on which strategic management is built,
assume choice is dependent on a knowledge of alternatives, a
knowledge of consequences, a consistent preference ordering, and
clear decision rules. Yet these conditions do not obtain in DoD

strategic decision making situations. Rather, decision makers

are "sharply constrained by circumstances of time, distance, and

29
organizational complexity and self-interest," all characteris-

tics of organizational anarchies (Sabrosky, et al., 1983:38).

The PPBS (Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System),
initiated in the early 1960s by the then Secretary of Defense,
Robert McNamara, was intended to bring some order and rationality
to decision making within DoD. The goal was to centralize
planning in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), provide
guidance to the Services on programming, correlate budgets with
plans, and use cost-benefit analysis and other analytical tech-
niques to assist in decision making. It was McNamara's assess-
ment that the problems of the Department of Defense were not the
lack of management authority, "but rather the absence of the
essential management tools needed to make sound decisions on the
really crucial issues of national security (OSD Study Team,

1987a:A-8). PPBS was envisioned as that managerial tool.

Within a 15-month cycle, it would eventually translate broad

national security objectives and strategy into a 5-year defense

plan and a yearly operating budget.
There is debate, however, over the efficacy of PPBS. De-

spite the fact that it has been in a constant state of evolution

since its introduction to the DoD, reformers still criticize its
inability to couple expenditures with the department's mission
and role as originally intended. Problems arise, they say,

because PPBS has not been properly developed and administered.

With variations on problem descriptions depending on the source,

the following general concerns have been identified: ineffective

strategic planning; an insufficient relationship between strate-

30
gic planning and fiscal constraints; absence of realistic fiscal
guidance; failure to emphasize the output side of the defense
program; inability to make meaningful JCS program improvements;
insufficient attention in the PPBS to execution and control;
and the length, complexity, and instability of the PPBS Cycle

(Ansoff, 1984; GAO, 1985; SASC, 1985:483-528).

Unique Features of the DoD

Besides the constraints summarized above, there are unique
features that limit the portability of strategic management into
the DoD: the size and complexity of the department; turnover of
personnel; and DoD's mission.

Size and complexity of DoD. The first feature is "the sheer

size of the defense establishment: there is simply nothing in
American civil society that begins to compare with its awesome
dimensions" (Luttwak, 1985:68). Reporting to the Secretary, are
twelve major defense agencies, eight major DoD field activities,
the Chairman of the JCS, ten Unified and Specified combat com-

mands, three (four if you count the Marine Corps) Military De-
partments, and thirty-three major officials within OSD. In time
of war, one additional uniformed Service, the Coast Guard, would
come under the DoD.
Significantly larger than any business, the DoD has over
four million active duty, reserve and civilian employees who work
directly for it, and over three million additional personnel in
the private sector to provide services or products to the DoD
(Brown, 1983:216-217; OSD Study Report, 1987:1-3). In compari-
son, General Motors was ranked by Dun and Bradstreet as the larg-

31
est private employer in 1986 with only 660,000 employees. The

DoD's FY 1987 budget authority was 282 billion was almost three
times the sales of General Motors, the company with the largest
sales volume ($103 billion) and four times that of Exxon, the
second largest company, with $70 million in sales (OSD Study
Team, 1987a:I3-I4).

The DoD has some 1265 military installations and properties;

870 in U.S., 375 overseas in 21 countries, and 20 in U.S.
territories. One quarter of all active duty military personnel
are stationed outside of U.S. The FY-88 DoD budget included

$290.8B budget authority requested and $285.5B budget outlays

expected; roughly 5.7% GNP, 26.1% of federal outlays or 17% of
net public spending. Also included in DoD's activities are just
under $7B in foreign military sales, $906M in foreign government
grant aids, and $56M in international military training and
education.

Theorists warn that organizations of such size will suffer

from control problems inherent in all bureaus. Downs (1976),

for example, specified three laws of bureau control: that "no

one can control the behavior of a large organization" (Law of

Imperfect Control); that "the larger an organization becomes,

the weaker is the control over its actions exercised by those at

the top (The Law of Diminishing Control); and that "the larger

any organization becomes, the poorer is the coordination among

its actions (The Law of Decreasing Coordination) (Downs,

1967:132-143). Downs adds that despite efforts to significantly

increase the data-handling capabilities of the organization, to

improve the accounting systems, to develop high-speed computers,

32
or to structural modify the organization for enhanced coordina-
tion, little can be done, especially for managers at the top, to
"overcome the basic working out of these Laws" (p.143). Brown
(1982) agrees noting that "one of the most pressing problems of
our times is the management of bigness" (1982:74).

Enterprise strategic management deals with the problem of

size by recommending that very large companies mimic smaller
firms. One way to do this is to create smaller, highly decen-
tralized business units and give the managers who run them great-
er flexibility and freedom, even profit and loss responsibility,
while removing most staff review from the top. Popularized as
the "big vs. small" debate in the business press by such writers
such a Tom Peters (1982;1986) and George Gilder (1989), the
virtues of small, entrepreneurial, agile companies are said to be
preferred to the inefficiencies of big business.
Size produces inefficiencies, according to the reasoning,
because as the firm grows, size increases specialization among
the subunits. Over time, the goals, values, and technologies of

the various subunits begin to differentiate from one another.

This greater differentiation produces more demands on upper
management to coordinate and integrate organizational activities.
There reaches a point, some say at about $50 million in revenues
(Byrne, 1989:90), when the top gets overloaded in its integrative
role. Despite its attempts to improve coordination with formal
procedures, computers, a streamlined organizational structure,
the complexity is too much for top management to handle. Upper
management begins "choking at the load" (Andrew Grove, CEO In-

33
tell, 1989).
This condition is especially problematic for enterprises
that operate in what are called "turbulent environments," where
new technologies and social, political, and economic forces
require change and adaptation at a rapid rate in order for the
company to stay competitive (Kanter, 1989; Peters, 1988). As
upper management attempts to react to the external forces that
beset them, integration is passed on to staff or others lower in
the hierarchy, or in some cases, is neglected. When this occurs,
the organization looses its direction and focus.
Companies such General Electric have begun to take heed of

these problems. Its Chairman Jack Welch speaks of transforming

GE into a "big-company/small-company hybrid" in order to combine
the large corporation's resources with the small company's sim-

plicity and agility (Byrne, 1989:85). Others companies such as

ATT are following suit by reducing layers of management, pushing
decision making down to lower-level managers, shortcutting ap-
proval processes, and reorienting the cultures to make them more
entrepreneurial. The pattern is similar to very successful
companies like Hewlett-Packard and Johnson & Johnson which have

already organized themselves into groups of smaller companies

(Byrne, 1989:85).
Decentralized enterprise management is possible in these

firms because they have the ability to monitor sub unit perform-
ance using indicators such as profit and loss, sales and return

on investment. Corporate headquarters sets overall direction,

tracks performance and takes corrective action when necessary,
while decentralized sub-units run the business, as long as they

34
meet pre-established measures of performance.
Transferring the "small is beautiful" logic to the DoD is
fraught with difficulties, however. Despite its creation as a
single entity in 1947, and despite the evolutionary changes over
the last 40 years which have produced greater consolidation in
the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD Study Team, 1987a),
the Department of Defense is still described as a fragmented,
anarchical collection of feudal baronies (Gabriel, 1979; Lutt-
wak, 1985), a "vast conglomerate of quasi-independent agencies"
(Wilson, 1989:211). The services and other powerful actors have
enormous influence in Congress, and depending on the preference
of the Secretary of Defense, exercise a great deal of control in
running their bureaus (SASC, 1985; Odeen, 1985; OSD Study Team,
1987a; Service Secretaries, 1987; Young, 1987).
The Secretary of Defense himself has minimal tools to manage

the Department. He lacks the resources, personnel and systems to

effectively coordinate and control all the organizations under
his authority (Luttwak, 1985; Odeen, 1985; OSD Study Team,
1987a; SASC, 1985; Wilson, 1989). Charles Bowsher, Comptroller
General of the United States in his statement to the House Armed
Services Committee stated it bluntly: "Our evaluations of DoD's
practices clearly show that it does not adequately control its
resources; provide its managers, the Congress, or the public
with a true accounting for the financial assets entrusted to it;

or effectively control costs. DoD needs accurate, and compre-

hensive information of costs, assets, liabilities and funding"
(GAO, 1990:27). Only, recently, for example, has the DoD insti-

35
tuted a program to develop a unified, non-duplicative information
system for the department. Secretary of Defense Cheney brought
in Mr. Atwood from General Motors to be in charge of the DoD
comptroller office and install GM's Corporate Information Manage-
ment (CIM) Strategy. According to one analyst, "GM was wrestling
with problems with its information systems that are familiar to
DoD watchers: divisional parochialism, divisional rivalry, not-
invented-here syndrome, duplication, obsolescence, data incompat-
ibilities and attachments to computer architectures that were
more theological than technical in basis" (Haga, 1990:1). This
system is estimated to take at least ten years or more to imple-
ment, although some doubt is thrown on this projection when the
current implementation problems are taken into account (Steele
and Schweizer, 1991).
It is difficult to translate strategic management theory

into practice for multiorganizational bureaus under such condi-

tions. If one takes into account DoD's size, complexity, and

need for innovation, theory would recommend some form of decen-

tralization. On the other hand, given DoD's underdeveloped

systems and controls, difficulty of measuring performance, costs

associated with the redundancies in decentralized systems, the
power of its subunits and agencies, and DoD's special mission
(described in a following section), theory would advice some form
of centralization.
From a theoretical standpoint, therefore, it is not clear
what path the DoD should be taking. Given its size and the other

features, the institution may be so unique that recommendations

from enterprise strategic management will not transfer well as a

36
consequence. For "as Galileo once defined it in his square cube
law, a change of size is a change in form, and consequently in
institution (Bell, 1970:68). Based on this reasoning, the DoD
may represent a difference in form, a difference in institution.
Personnel Turnover. The DoD experiences regular, and rapid
turnover of its civilian personnel, particularly Presidential
appointees, as do other cabinet departments. The average tenure

is calculated to be about 3 years (Collins, 1982). As of the end

of fiscal year 1986, the average tenure of Presidential Appoint-

ees in OSD was 24 months and the average tenure of Noncareer
Executives was slightly over 30 months (OSD Study Team,
1987a:VII-13).
This rapid turnover limits the participation of top offi-

cials in the defense strategy formulation process. Says Collins,

"average turnovers (are) so short that even fully qualified
civilians and military men customarily (find) it almost impossi-
ble to promulgate cohesive policies and programs, much less
pursue them to successful conclusions (Collins, 1982:105).

What compounds DoD problems and makes the department even

more unique compared with other public bureaus, however, is its

mandatory turnover in military personnel. While the time period
varies, military personnel typically change their billets once
every two to three years to rotate between combat and support
functions. This turnover, coupled with civilian changes, chal-

lenges institutional memory and continuity of programs. Not only

is routine functioning disrupted, but significant change projects

suffer from a lack of coordination. New weapons systems, for

37
example, can take eight to twelve years to develop. A major

organizational restructuring can take five years or more to fully

implement. New management systems such as CIM can take even
longer to get operational. Turnover in both civilian and mili-
tary personnel puts additional strains on what are normally are

challenging tasks in their own right. While strategic management

theory assumes that organizational adaptation to the environment
is vital for organizational survival, the department's personnel
policies limit the continuity of personnel to manage these impor-
tant adaptations.
Mission and Visibility of DoD. A third unique feature of
the DoD is its mission and visibility. Charged with the respon-
sibility of implementing the military strategy of the United
States, it must be ready to use violence to achieve national
objectives whenever peaceful efforts fail. Every American, some
would add the entire international community, has an interest in
how well the Department is run, so the stakes are enormous.
While enterprise mistakes can have catastrophic financial ef-

fects, mistakes in defense, given its deadly arsenal of weapons,

can kill us all.

DoD accountability is of great concern under these circum-

stances. The public, through its presidential elections and
oversight committees in Congress, reviews defense policy and its
execution. Task forces, blue ribbon commissions and special
hearings in Congress investigate various aspects of defense
management and provide additional opportunities to examine opera-

tions. As we saw in the latest example of Desert Storm, televi-

sion opens up new avenues by which DoD performance can be judged.

38
No other bureau is so visible, so important, and elicits so much
public interest as does the DoD.
The interest has increased of late due to the growing costs
in supporting the department and its mission. Questions such as
"How much is enough" have again surfaced as defense dollars
compete with other critical services and domestic needs (Entoven
and Smith, 1971; Fox, 1988). How these questions will be ad-

dressed and answered remains to be determined. For as yet,

according to the Packard Commission:

"There is no rational system whereby the Executive Branch and the

Congress reach coherent and enduring agreement on national mili-
tary strategy, the forces to carry it out, and the funding that
should be provided -- in light of the overall economy and compet-
ing claims on national resources. The absence of such a system
contributes substantially to the instability and uncertainty that
plague our defense program (President's Blue Ribbon Commission on
Defense Management, 1986:472).
It is precisely this type of system that strategic manage-

ment seeks to introduce, and it is precisely this system that is

will be difficult to introduce given the limits outlined in this
paper.
Three Options

The previous section has summarized some of the major rea-

sons why strategic management is not readily portable to the DoD.

Thus, those interested in DoD management are left with a major

dilemma. If strategic management is not a viable alternative for
the department, then what options exist to manage this multi-
organizational entity, assuming that management is an important
concern.
One could envisage at least three general responses: Status

39
Quo Acceptance; Building Capacity for Strategic Management; and

Innovations in Organizational Designs.

Response # 1: Status Quo Acceptance

The first response in very simplified terms accepts the

status quo. Differences between enterprises and bureaus, as
enumerated in this paper, are acknowledged. There are con-
straints in managing public bureaus, especially at the strategic

level of the organization. Rather than fighting the constraints,

proponents of this position would accept them and try to work

within them as best they can. The rationale is as follows.

The constraints that public strategic managers experience
are a natural outgrowth of our constitutional system. These
constraints were intentionally designed into our structure of
government and have been elaborated upon over the years because
they serve a very important purpose. They were designed to

prevent the concentration and abuse of power by any one person,

group, or branch of government, and to protect the liberty and
freedoms for all citizens. Our constitutional system was not
structured for the purpose of organizational efficiency and
effectiveness. Instead, efficiency and effectiveness have been
"sacrificed on the alter of tedious processes of persuasive

coordination" (Chisholm, 1989:201). The competing centers of

power, the fragmented decision process in a pluralistic system,
and the attendant difficulties of coordination experienced in and
among public bureaus are the price we pay for our shared power

system of governance.
Calls for more efficiency and effectiveness are the conse-
quence of inappropriately applying the expectations of a ration-

40
al and comprehensive model of decision making -- a model derived
from organizations having a hierarchical authority structure and
system of controls -- to bureaus that operate in a complex,

fragmented, political world. The informed response to these

demands should be that while there are management problems, they
need to be put into perspective. The system operates as well as
can be expected given its political context. We have prevented
the concentration of power, and most specifically the concentra-

tion of military power. We have had a stable constitutional

system for over two hundred years. The services and the military
have served us well. We do not have a system built for efficien-
cy, but that was not the goal. The limitations on our public
managers illustrate that the system is working as anticipated.

The role of the manager is to learn to function within these con-

straints.
Thus, the solution is to have managers "muddle through" as
best they can (Lindblom (1959;1979). While system coherence is a
concern, the best way to deal with it is by making decisions
incrementally throughout the many subunits of governments, making

limited adjustments in response to the competing political de-

mands rather than devising comprehensive, integrative strategic
plans to cope with the uncertainty and complexity. Furthermore,
accommodation to competing interests, and sequential attention to
inconsistent goals is not dysfunctional; it is appropriate given
the constraints, conditions, and context (Mintzberg, 1978; Quinn,
1980). Although an expected consequence of incremental adapta-

tion is redundancy and fragmentation in and among organizational

41
systems, it is a small price to pay for our current constitution-
al arrangement. Then too, an important consideration for the

DoD is combat effectiveness, not cost effectiveness, even when

troops are not engaged in combat. Although costs are of concern,

they are not the driving force, and should not be the driving
force, in making strategic and organizational decisions.
There are other advantages to having a more decentralized,
pluralistic system, with its redundancies and so-called ineffi-
ciencies. The potential for innovation, adaptation and flexibil-
ity is greater in these systems. Without the weight and com-
plexity imposed by organizational controls and centralized deci-
sion making, there can be greater responsiveness to environmental
change and greater experimentation among the competing centers of
power. In addition, command systems whether they be military or

economic have their problems that make them unacceptable to

democratic systems -- the German General Staff and the Soviet
economy are two such examples.
We also know that there is no perfect way to design a sys-

tem; tradeoffs among competing goals are necessary. "If im-

proved coordination is achieved by eliminating multiorganization,

then accountability will suffer, along with flexibility and
reliability" (Chisholm, 1989:201). Furthermore, Chisholm has

speculated that the relationship between coordination and costs

is not merely linear. Additional increments of coordination are
expected to cost substantially more and "may not be desirable in

light of the required tradeoffs with other important values

(1989:201). Thus, at some point it may not be worth investing in
more coordination. The marginal costs may be too great since the

42
savings achieved by eliminating some redundancies and inefficien-
cies are expected to be less than the opportunity costs incurred
from increasing coordination.
Response # 2: Building Capacity for Strategic Management
The second option begins with the acknowledgment of the
limitations in transferring strategic management to public bu-
reaus. However, it differs from the first option in viewing the
limitations, not as roadblocks that must be endured, but as
elements that are amenable to change and modification.

The limitations of strategic management in the DoD outlined

above are not immutable. If policy formulation has been diffi-
cult, either invent new mechanisms of coordination, or find
leaders who are capable of forging a new consensus. If implemen-
tation is problematic, then search for ways to improve it. If
DoD lacks a viable information system, then find and introduce
one. If the planning is not resource constrained and linked with
budgeting, then conjoin both elements with a new process. If

procurement is flawed, correct it. If the Department needs

integrated financial and accounting systems to help monitor
costs, develop them. If the personnel system is not compatible
with a strategic view, then change it. If DoD managers lack

skill and experience in strategic management, educate them or

bring in managers who do have this background. While it may not
be possible to introduce a comprehensive strategic management

system for the short run given the aforementioned limitations, it

may be possible to build capacity by ensuring that these and
other necessary and sufficient elements of strateQic manaQement

43
are in place for the future (Ansoff, 1984; Eadie, 1989)
The limitations of strategic management in public bureaus
also may be overdrawn, more a reflection of top management's
self-imposed restrictions rather than evidence of system malfunc-
tioning. Lacking education and experience with strategic manage-
ment, public managers may be too ready to accept "constraints" in
managing their bureaus. Where they have options they may only
see limitations. Where they have autonomy and control, they may

choose not to exercise it.

The issue of resource scarcity cannot be ignored either.
The DoD simply can no longer afford the luxury of incremental,
adaptive decision making and poor coordination among its multiple
organizations. "Muddling through" has become too expensive.
Although no organization, enterprise or bureau, ever has all the
resources it wants or even needs, now more than ever, hard
choices must be made among the competing DoD programs and inter-
ests. Strategic management is valuable under these conditions

because it is designed to force choice in a resource-constrained

world. Armed with explicit goals and strategies, better evalua-

tion systems and controls, and improved organizational systems to

monitor costs and ensure operational effectiveness, strategic
managers could reduce many of the inefficiencies and redundancies

in the department. Better coordination among the services also

would be expected to lead to combat effectiveness (SASC, 1985).

Thus, the second option responds to the limitations of

strategic management by announcing and launching large-scale
programs of change to provide the necessary and sufficient ele-
ments of strategic management. Initiated by upper management,

44
these change programs -- be they new DoD structures, systems, or
processes -- would be the foundation on which a fully functioning
strategic management program could be built for the future.
Patterned after other successful change projects in the public
sector, there is reason to expect that, over time, they too could

be successful (Golembiewski, Proehl, and Sink, 1981).

Option #3: Innovative Designs
The third option also acknowledges the limitations of trans-
porting strategic management to the DoD. But rather than finding

"fault" with the DoD because it has not made the necessary and

sufficient changes for strategic management to work, the third

option questions the appropriateness of the strategic management

model for the DoD in the first place, and seeks to find innova-
tive alternatives in its stead.

The major model of enterprise strategic management tends to

be more useful and appropriate for smaller organizations operat-

ing in fairly stable environments -- organizations with consist-

ent routines experiencing fewer changes in their technologies,
competitors, customers, employees, suppliers, distributors and

relations with other key stakeholders such as governmental agen-

cies. It has been less successful in large organizations facing

turbulent and complex environments which require adaptation and

innovation in response to their changing circumstances (De

Greene, 1982; Mintzberg, 1990). In fact, how one strategically

manages in a chaotic, turbulent environment is not well under-
stood, nor well practiced (Peters 1988). Under these conditions,

some even question the possibility of any purposeful organiza-

45
tional strategy at all (Astley and Van de Ven, 1983).

The third option, rather than focusing on the specific

elements of the DoD that needed changing, would turn attention to
the limitations of the strategic management model itself. Prob-
lems in transferring enterprise strategic management should
occur, not because of the enormity of the task to be accom-
plished, but because the model itself is a poor fit with the DoD
context. What the DoD needs, as well as other multiorganization-
al systems managing in very turbulent environments, are new
models to guide strategic choice.
Where does one find such models? Enterprise strategic
management provides little guidance. While isolated insights
have begun to cast doubt on the assumptions of strategic manage-
ment models (Morgan, 1983; 1986; Mintzberg, 1990; De Greene,

1982; Gemmill and Smith, 1985), strategy research has produced

no alternatives. An example will illustrate the point.
According to strategic management theory, if a strategic
manager were searching for decision making models to guide the
strategy process, s/he would have three alternatives from which
to choose: the entrepreneurial model, the incremental model, or
the planning model (Mintzberg, 1974). Theoretically, the model
selected would depend on the nature of the organization's context
and the time needed to make strategic decisions, and the organi-

zation's internal task requirements for integration. Figure 1

illustrates how these models can be graphically displayed.

Insert Figure 1 About Here

46
 FIGURE 1

DECISION MAKING MODELS

H
Environmental
Adaptation

Entrepreneurial Model

Task
Coordination

L H

Incremental Model Planning Model

L
 The entrepreneurial model of strategic decision making in
quadrant 1 is characterized by the search for innovations and new
opportunities. Time is of the essence. Quick, bold responses to
environmental opportunities can give an organization an edge over
competitors. As a result, the decision making authority tends
to rest with an entrepreneur and complex decision processes are
avoided since they slow down the response time. Imagination,

flexibility and creativity are more highly valued than a concern

for coordination, integration and control. The coordination that
does occur depends on the entrepreneur and on his/her personal
ability to quickly integrate the organizational responses to the
environment.
The incremental model of strategy making in quadrant 2 is

characteristic of organizations with no one central source of

power but rather multiple centers, each with their own goals and

objectives. Decisions in this complex environment tend made in

small, disjointed, and incremental steps. The steps are small to

avoid triggering resistance from the opposing factions; dis-

jointed because no one has the capacity to interrelate and inte-
grate them given the multiple centers of power and the complexity
of the process; and incremental because it is easier to "test
the water," collect feedback and make adjustments as one goes
along. Integration needs are less of a concern since serial
adjustments to accommodate competing demands substitute for
reconciliation of interests as a whole and the forging of a

coherent entity. Time presses less on decision making, since

adaptation to the demands of others is viewed as more important

47
than responding rapidly for the purpose of innovation and change.
The Planning Model of strategic decision making describes a

systematic assessment of the costs and benefits of alternate

proposals for the future, and through that process, a choice of a
desired end state. To achieve this end state, a comprehensive

plan is designed to interrelate all organization's decisions and

activities. Coordination is paramount to avoid the conflicts
inherent when decisions and actions are made independently of one
another. Rapid response to the organization's environment is

less important than coordinated action. The organization's

environment tends to be stable so patterns can be anticipated and
built in to the cost benefit analysis. More important to the
strategic decision process is the coordination required to imple-
ment the comprehensive plan.

The blank space in quadrant four underscores the point that

no model, as yet, has been identified that would enable decisions

makers to make strategic choices quickly in response to environ-

mental changes, while av the same time maintaining the organiza-
tion's internal coherence and integrative capacity. And yet it
is this type of situation that most characterizes the needs of
large organizations as they cope with environmental chaos and
turbulence. The search is for mechanisms to both enhance inter-
nal coordination while at the same time ensure continued flexi-
bility in response to the environment. Organizations, histori-
cally, have not done well at both, at least for a prolonged

period. The tendency has been to focus on one dimension (either

coordination or adaptation) to the detriment of the other.

For example, concentration on internal coordination and

48
integration tends to make organizations inward looking, without
concern for their external environments. If their external
environments change, unaware of their contexts, they often have
been unable to adapt. The U.S. car companies of the 1970s are
good example of this problem. The internal focus on coordination
also has tended to push the organization toward centralized
decision making, since centralized decision making is thought to
be the most efficient and cost effective way to integrate and
coordinate organizational activity.

But centralized decision making can become problematic for

organizations when the information processing requirements needed
to make decisions exceed the capacity of the Chief Executive
Officer or his/her support staffs to handle the information re-
quired to make decisions. Organizations then begin to add layers

of hierarchy to process the information required by the higher

levels. Additional layers of hierarchy produce additional
complexity which further delays the decision making process, and
makes organizations even less responsive to their environments.
Costs also rise as the complexity of the decision making process

increases and additional numbers of staff and layers of the

hierarchy are added to process information.

On the other hand, organizational emphasis on flexibility

and responsiveness to the external environment usually provokes

various types of decentralization. The organization wants to be
closer to its "markets and customers" than a centralized struc-
ture permits. Its goal is to be innovative and flexible in
response to customer needs. The danger is that decentralization

49
can produce even greater specialization and fragmentation among
the organization's subparts, resulting in less interest and
concern for the organization as a whole. Without some mecha-
nisms to hold the organization together, sub-goals can form and
threaten organizational cohesion. In addition, while organiza-
tional flexibility keeps the organization close to its external
contacts, decentralization involves functional redundancies that
also increase operating costs.

The need for both coordination and adaptation are evident

within the DoD. The nature of DoD's mission, its rising costs,
and its deadly weaponry and coercive power has moved reformers to
call for more oversight and control (Leahey, 1989). The argument
is also made that no one service fights a war; no one service has

all the required personnel nor the weaponry. Coordinated action

among the services is necessary for combat effectiveness (SASC,
1985). These aspects have moved the organization toward more
centralized decision making, as has the need to respond to com-

plaints about inefficiencies, redundancies, and abuses that have

been lodged against the department (SASC, 1985).
On the other hand, the complexity of the DoD is already

legion. Despite its decentralization, despite the strong hold

of the services and the existence of the unified and specified
commands, analysts still remark about its "numbing complexity."
Complaints about its rigidity and unwieldy decision and planning
processes continue to fuel calls for even greater decentraliza-
tion and flexibility. A rapidly changing international defense
environment also reinforces the need to develop more flexible
military responses rather than to rely on those designed to fight

50
a land war in Europe.
The DoD, as do all organizations, must search for the
"right" factors to enhance coordination and integration while
maintaining flexibility and adaptability to the changing context.

But given its unique mission, environment, size, and history, it

is not clear what the appropriate combination will be. The
search may well require some unique models of organizations that
have yet to be invented.
Thus, we are at an important juncture. Models from enter-

prise strategic management are less appropriate and new models

have yet to evolve. We are in search of innovations and new
forms of social organization (Drucker, 1988; Jelinek, Litterer,
and Miles, 1986; Sayles and Chandler, 1971).

Current suggestions on how to proceed are provocative, but

have not produced recommendations developed enough for immediate
application to the DoD. For example, to move us beyond our old
paradigmatic thinking, some analysts have encouraged the use of

innovative concepts and insights which have emerged from the

revolution in physics, chemistry, biology, and the cognitive
sciences: observer/observation interaction, "mutual causality,"
"resiliency," "co-evolution," "complementarity," "quantum
logic," "dissipative structures," "order through fluctuation,"
"chaos theory," "self-organizing systems," and "holographic and

holonomic order" (Bradley, 1987; Bradley and Roberts, 1989;

Roberts, 1987; Gemmill and Smith, 1985; Morgan, 1983) These

concepts and insights, while intriguing, have yet to be molded

into an coherent epistemology let alone a comprehensive framework

51
to could guide strategic action in organizations (Daneke, 1990).
Morgan (1986) provides other innovative suggestions. He

recommends the use of alternate images or metaphors of organiza-

tions to help managers characterize the complex character of

organizational life. Rather than relying on the metaphors of the

machine or the organism, which have been the earliest and most
widely used metaphors of strategic management, he challenges us
to look at organizations as holographic or cybernetic systems, or

as systems in flux and transformation. He hopes this creative

exercise can point to managing and designing organizations in
ways not thought possible before.
These possibilities, while promising, await realization in

the future as do other equally interesting suggestions from

social theorists on self designing organizations, and adaptive
designs (De Greene, 1982; Jantsch 1975; 1980). To date, however,
no substitute for the current approach to s-trategic management

exists to guide strategic choice in large multiorganizational

bureaus. At this juncture, perhaps the best one can hope for is

that with "imaginization" will eventually come invention as

people begin to recreate and rewrite the strategic map of their

organizations.
Conclusion

This paper began challenging the assumption that management

is a generic process. Public bureaus and enterprises are viewed
as different entities and their differences constrain the port-
ability of management principles from enterprises. The Depart-
ment of Defense was used as a case example to illustrate the
problems in transferring enterprise strategic management to

52
multiorganizational public bureaus.
Reactions to this analysis are expected to vary. One antic-
ipates at least three general responses as outlined in the last
section of the paper. First, one could accept the status quo and
counsel understanding since managers are doing the best they can
managing public bureaus. Second, one could launch major change
projects to build the necessary and sufficient conditions to make
strategic management work. If there are constraints in the
application of strategic management, then the solution is to
eliminate or change them. Third, in place of the management
concepts from enterprises, one could search for innovative solu-
tions to solve the unique strategic management problems of public
bureaus. If strategic mangement principles are not portable from
enterprise, then the alternative is to invent some that are
appropriate for the unique context.
If one selects either of the first two responses, the task
for the future is clearer, if not easier. Either maintain
things as they are with minimal adjustments, or launch major

change efforts to make the DoD and other public bureaus more
amenable to strategic management. If one selects the third
option, the task is more difficult. While there is some good
news -- we need not look to models from business and industry as
guidelines for bureau strategic mangement -- the bad news is that
we have nothing else to substitute in their place. We have no
models to guide the strategic management of multi-organizational
bureaus operating in very complex and chaotic environments.

Before rejecting the third option as out of hand and beyond

53
our limited capacity, at least in the short run, the reader
should be reminded of other DoD innovations. Operations research

was born out of a need to understand and plan complex operations

in the War II era. Project management, PERT, and matrix organi-
zations evolved from a desire to organize and orchestrate very
complex, ambiguous tasks which required the cooperation of multi-
ple organizations working together over a long period of time.
If necessity is the mother of invention, then we can anticipate

some very interesting organizational innovations.

So it is the third option, at least from this observer's
perspective, that opens up more possibilities for the DoD.

Finding the logic of "rational," comprehensive action too limit-

ing, the beliefs about management control illusory, and the
acceptance of the status quo unimaginative and too costly, one
welcomes the discovery of new forms of social organization to

open up the promise of the future.

54
 NOTES

1 Despite the numerous books and articles defining the subject

and its practice, there is no agreement on a common definition,
nor a common approach to the practice and study of strategic
management (Cunningham, 1989). Instead, one relies on two gener-
al approaches to capture the essence of strategic management:
the sYno~tic aRproach and the incremental approach (Fredrickson,
1983).
In very basic terms, the sxn2Dt i approach is characterized
by "integrative comprehensiveness." There is a conscious attempt
to integrate the decisions that compose the organization's over-
all strategy to insure that the decisions are consciously de-
veloped, mutually reinforcing, and integrated into a whole
(Fredrickson, 1983:566). In addition, the objective is to inte-
grate the organization's internal roles, processes, structure,
and decisions in order to position the organization for the best
fit vis-a-vis its market and environment. Thus, good "fit" or
"alignment" describes the compatibility between the organization,
its external environment, and its preferred strategy -- defined
as the means an organization chooses to move it where it is now
to where it wants to be in the future (Digman, 1990:6-8). In the
simplest of terms, strategic management is a process by which the
organization assesses where it is at the present time, decides
where it wants to in the future, and then decides the best way to
get there (Digman, 1990:7). The process is expected to be ana-
lytic, rational, and comprehensive.
On the other hand, with the incremental aDDroach, there is
little attempt to consciously integrate individual and organiza-
tion decisions that affect one another. Strategy emerges from a
loose coupling of groups of decisions that are handled individu-
ally without integration (Fredrickson, 1983:566). Typically,
this type of strategic process is directed at some modification
of the current state, and requires little coordination among
various groups and individuals in the organization. While the
ultimate objective is to achieve "a viable match between the
opportunities and risks present in the external environment and
the organization's capabilities and resources for exploiting
those opportunities " (Hofer, 1973:3), there is no effort to
manage this adaptation in a coordinated and integrated way.
Descriptions of the synoptic approach tends to predominate
in the business literature, while descriptions of the incremental
approach tends to predominate in the policy and public sector
literature.
2 Besides the difficulties of defining strategic management,
there is a great deal of confusion between strategic management
and related terms. For example, synoptic strategic management is
considered to be different from strategic planning. Strategic
planning involves the formulation and evaluation of alternative
strategies, the selection of a preferred strategy, and the devel-

55
opment of detailed plans to put the strategy into practice
(Digman, 1990:8).
In contrast, synoptic strategic management consists of both
strategic planning and strategic controls. Strategic controls
ensure that the chosen strategy is being implemented as antici-
pated and is producing the desired results. Plans, strategic or
otherwise, are not likely to be effective without controls;
controls help decision makers compare actual conditions with
planned conditions, analyze any differences, and make necessary
adjustments. Thus, strategic management is a more encompassing
concept than strategic planning; it also describes a continuous
process rather than the periodic one of strategic planning
(Digman, 1990:7-8).
Strategic management (synoptic) also differs from long-range
planning. Long-range planning tends to assume that current trends
will continue into the future. Long-range plans, therefore, tend
to be linear extrapolations from the present. They require
long-range planners to work backwards from the future to specify
a sequence of decisions and actions necessary to get to the
anticipated future. Consequently, efforts tend to be more fo-
cused on specifying goals and objectives and translating them
into current budgets and programs. The danger is that long-range
planners get locked into a set of decisions and actions that may
not be appropriate if the future differs from their projections
(Bryson, 1988:7-8).

In contrast, strategic management (synoptic) seeks to antic-

ipate new trends, discontinuities, surprises. It does not ex-
trapolate from the present into the future; it prepares for
qualitative shifts in direction. With continual assessment of
both the external environment and the organization's capacity,
the organization prepares for a number of contingencies. The
goal is to remain flexible and keep options open in order to deal
with unforeseen circumstances. While a particular strategy may
be the preferred one at one point in time, as the organization
engages in environmental scanning, analysis, strategic planning
and controlling, new strategies may emerge that are more adapt-
able to and compatible with a changing environment.

Given these distinctions, the synoptic approach is viewed as

a more comprehensive and integrated approach to strategic manage-
ment. While the planning function tends to be located in sub
units of the organization, primarily in staff positions, strate-
gic management is the concern and work of the general manager.
It is her/his responsibility to forge and execute an organiza-
tional strategy compatible with the organization's interest and
capability, given environmental constraints and opportunities.
Planning is only one of the functions necessary to accomplish
these tasks.

56
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